Amid the flurry of yard work and gardening that this early arrival of spring has triggered, I took a few hours off for a short hike in the Goose Creek area, just a ten-minute drive from home. I checked out a spot I hadn’t explored before—some open, rocky bluffs just a short walk from the Goose Creek Forest Service Road.
This ruffed grouse was foraging along the little game trail I was following, quite successfully blending in with the browns and greys of its surroundings.
My path traversed a young Douglas fir and lodgepole pine forest before emerging into the openings I’d seen on Google Earth, where, as I’d hoped, I came across some sagebrush buttercups in bloom. These little splashes of gold are usually the first wildflower blossoms to emerge every spring.
There’s no sagebrush here and, at this time of year, these south-facing slopes are oozing water—not desert-like at all. By summer, though, the thin veneer of soil that has accrued on these shelves of bedrock in the ten or twelve millennia since the glaciers polished them clean has dried to dust, and the micro-climate is very similar to what is found in more arid regions. The flora here takes advantage of the spring moisture to quickly reproduce and then recede again into dormancy for the rest of the seasonal cycle.
To the south and east there are views of the Kootenay River valley and the Bonnington Range, including Copper Mountain and Mount Connor.
I see some kind of simian face in the moss drooping over the edge of this little rock face.
Mosses and other flora are awakening as the temperature warms, creating vibrant mosaics on the forest floor.
I was surprised to see these wee ‘shrooms that seem have gotten a very early jump on spring.
I feel so fortunate that I am able to leave behind the often depressing realities of the world and, within a few minutes, be immersed in the calming, restorative embrace of nature. Deep gratitude for this and other blessings.
"There is something infinitely healing in the repeated refrains of nature - the assurance that dawn comes after night, and spring after winter." Rachel Carson
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